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NEWS AND COMMENTARY


More and more companies worldwide adopting English as official language

February 15, 2014 (Economist.com)—Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo’s boss, hardly spoke a word of English until he was about 40: he grew up in rural poverty and read engineering at university. But when Lenovo bought IBM’s personal-computer division in 2005 he decided to immerse himself in English: he moved his family to North Carolina, hired a language tutor and—the ultimate sacrifice—spent hours watching cable-TV news. This week he was in São Paulo, Brazil, for a board meeting and an earnings call: he conducted all his business in English except for a briefing for the Chinese press.

Lenovo is one of a growing number of multinationals from the non-Anglophone world that have made English their official language. The fashion began in places with small populations but global ambitions such as Singapore (which retained English as its lingua franca when it left the British empire in 1963), the Nordic countries and Switzerland. Goran Lindahl, a former boss of ABB, a Swiss-Swedish engineering giant, once described its official language as “poor English”. The practice spread to the big European countries: numerous German and French multinationals now use English in board meetings and official documents.

Audi may use a German phrase—Vorsprung durch Technik, or progress through engineering—in its advertisements, but it is impossible to progress through its management ranks without good English. When Christoph Franz became boss of Lufthansa in 2011 he made English its official language even though all but a handful of the airline’s 50 most senior managers were German.

The Académie française may be prickly about the advance of English. But there is no real alternative as a global business language. The most plausible contender, Mandarin Chinese, is one of the world’s most difficult to master, and least computer-friendly. It is not even universal in China: more than 400m people there do not speak it.

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Pronunciation matters: How should Canadian athletes’ names be pronounced?
By Amanda Kelly, Global News

MONTREAL, February 11, 2014—A Sun News Network television personality has publicly apologized after criticizing the way CBC anchors pronounced the names of French-Canadian Olympic athletes in English.

Brian Lilley made his comments as the host of the program Byline, which runs on Sun News, an English-language television network owned and operated by Quebecor Media.

“Why am I showing you CBC and their coverage of the Olympics?” Brian Lilley asked.

“Why? Because of the ridiculous pronunciation of the names involved.”

While Lilley acknowledged that the athletes’ names were French, he suggested that because they were used in an English context, they should be pronounced with “a certain English pronunciation.”

“If you listen to CBC, you wouldn’t even know that Charles Ham-a-lin had won a gold because he’s Sharle Am-e-leh, oui,” he said.

“Broadcasters in this country think that they have to go all native and speak a foreign language just because they’re pronouncing somebody’s name.”

Lilley then turned to Harley Sims, a linguistics “specialist” in Nova Scotia, for some guidance.

“It was irritating because this is not how people speak,” Sims said.

“We have a phenology [sic] in English, the way we pronounce words, and this is not how they talk.”

Sims went on to suggest what he considered the motivation behind pronouncing Quebec athletes names as they are pronounced in French.

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Workforce “digital chatter” puts international businesses at risk

February 11, 2014 (Gnomes National News Service)—With company brands now being defined by employee “digital chatter,” a new report finds only 37% of today’s workforce is appropriately skilled.

KEY STATISTICS:
84% of respondents feel social media has changed the nature of communications
83% see social media increasing in importance in the next three years

However, only 37% of the current workforce has the language and social media skills needed for the digital age.

Although four fifths (84%) of business professionals think social media has changed the nature of communications, only a third (37%) of today’s workforce have the English language skills required to communicate effectively through digital channels, according to a report published today by leading academic Professor Michael Hulme and Education First Corporate Language Learning Solutions (EF CLLS).

Leading the way in providing a positive digital communications experience are a young, motivated demographic – the “Linguarati.”  These employees have the level of English language proficiency and digital know-how to communicate effectively on social media and are eager to improve their skills.

Commenting on the findings of the report, Andy Bailey, CMO of EF CLLS, said: “Social media has radically changed the way that customers interact with brands, and businesses need to ensure they have the caliber of workforce to respond to that change.“

Professor Hulme added “businesses should train the many, not the few.  If you train only the Linguarati you will have areas of weakness. Failing to take advantage of many employees‘ appetite to improve their language skills could affect the international competitiveness and global brand of your business.“

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Many European languages under threat from the digital dominance of English

January 26, 2014 (Voice of Russia)—Many languages—many of them European—are losing out to the dominance of English, even when it comes to amassing written archives on the Internet. A forum is taking place at Cardiff University today to look at how technology and linguistics can come to the rescue of minority languages.

Voice of Russia’s Tim Ecott spoke to Dr Jeremy Eavis, Professor of Linguistics at Cardiff University.

Dr Jeremy Eavis told VoR:

“Of 7,000 languages in the world, on average, academic studies put around 90% of them in danger of extinction. Technology is one of a patchwork of things that can be used to revitalise languages. Most of us sit in front of a computer screen all day.

"Many of us sit in front of an English language one, wherever we are in the world and that software is very easily manipulable and can be translated into many different languages.

“My own machine in front of me now is in Welsh and that's thanks to a Microsoft programme. So that's the simplest aspect of it.

“We’ve got technology for translation. Now in Wales, much of the Welsh language we see in the linguistic landscape around us has been translated from English into Welsh. Technology can actually increase the throughput [and] increase translators' productivity. So we’ve all heard of Google Translate, which is quite a useful tool in the hands of a qualified human translator.

“And there are many other translation technology tools available as well. So it’s all about increasing the presence of these languages in the digital landscape and, who knows, in 50 years’ time English might be under threat from Chinese or another language,” he said.

Asked whether it was possible to use multilingual computer keyboards, he said:

“All those problems have been solved. We have diacritic marks—accent marks—on vowels, like in French and we have them in Spanish as well. But we have them on W and Y, and that used to pose a problem, but Apple and Microsoft have included that in their keyboard schemers, so it’s no longer a problem.”

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Asia, led by China, sweeps top spots in global education survey

PARIS, December 4, 2013 (AP)—Asian nations cemented their top positions in an eagerly awaited report on global education Tuesday, as their students continued to outshine Western counterparts in math, science and reading.

Shanghai again ranked first in math, science and reading in the three-yearly report by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), based on surveys of more than half a million 15-year-olds in 65 countries.

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea rounded out the top five in math skills.
The so-called PISA report (Program for International Student Assessment) is the single largest study of global schooling and has been dubbed the World Cup of education.

It is highly influential among education officials, with participating countries representing more than 80 percent of the global economy and often adapting policy in response to the findings.
Shanghai’s top rankings means its students are the equivalent of three years of schooling ahead of their counterparts with average scores, including those of many wealthy Western countries such as Britain and France.

This year’s survey focused on math skills, with Macau, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Netherlands rounding out the top 10.

Lacking a truly national sample in China, the report only includes some of the country’s most economically advanced regions, which the OECD acknowledges are not representative of the entire country.

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Nobel laureates call to inspire young people for new ideas

STOCKHOLM, December 8, 2013 (Xinhua) - Nobel chemistry prize winners Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus on Saturday called for “more attention and efforts” to young people to help foster new ideas.

“More attention and efforts should be given to young people, and make sure that the next great ideas come from people who are in their 20's, and not professors in their 60s,” said Levitt in a press conference in the middle of the ongoing Nobel Week.

He was echoed by Karplus, who added that it was the teachers’ and professors’ responsibility to help foster new ideas out of young people.

“We should make sure that when the young has original ideas, they have a chance to express themselves out,” said Karplus.

Meanwhile, Levitt also highlighted the importance of communicating with young people using new media.

“It’s an impressive TV program that prompted me to science. TV was quite new to me then. So I think in order to inspire young people, we should be talking in their languages such as Twitter, Facebook, “ said Levitt.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Arieh Warshel, Martin Karplus and Michael Levitt, for their joint “development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.”

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Honda adopts English as official language in global meetings

LOS ANGELES, November 27, 2013—Honda Motor Co. (7267) made English the official language of global meetings as the Japanese carmaker shifts decision-making power to regional units.

Chief Executive Officer Takanobu Ito informed global employees of the change in April, John Mendel, executive vice president of the Tokyo-based company’s U.S. sales unit, said in an interview at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Mendel was promoted to Honda’s North American management committee in 2012, in an earlier move by Ito to localize business decisions.

The carmaker’s move follows language conversions by Japanese companies such as Fast Retailing Co. (9983), Asia’s biggest apparel seller, and Rakuten Inc. (4755), the country’s largest Internet mall. Honda’s new rule applies to in-person meetings and video conferences, raising the chances top executives will use interpreters, as Fast Retailing President Tadashi Yanai and Ito himself have done in news media interviews.

“Imagine the shock sent through the operation,” Mendel said in an interview yesterday. “The CEO stands up and says, ‘All discussions about global operations will be conducted in English and oh, by the way, if you don’t understand it, get an interpreter.’”

Rakuten announced its shift to English as the company’s official language in 2010 and phased in the language’s use over two years. The online retailer’s billionaire President Hiroshi Mikitani, Japan’s third-richest person, earned an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1993.

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Bahrain calls for adding Arabic to official languages used by WTO

MANAMA, Bahrain, December 2, 2013—A Bahraini parliamentary delegation has called for adding Arabic to the three official languages used by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

MP Abdul Halim Murad, from the lower chamber of the bicameral parliament, and Ahmad Ebrahim Bahzad, from the upper chamber, made the request at the Parliamentary Conference of the global world body in the Indonesian capital Bali on Monday, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported.

English, French and Spanish are the languages that WTO uses for translations and interpretations and for official documents.

The request for the adoption of Arabic was reportedly supported by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco.

Arabic, spoken in more than 20 countries, is one of the six official languages used at the United Nations. Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish are the other languages.

The six languages are used at meetings of various UN organs, particularly the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and the Security Council.

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United Arab Emirates makes notable improvement in English proficiency
By Sara Sabry, Gulf News

ABU DHABI, November 9, 2013—The UAE has made significant strides in improving proficiency in English among adults, but the level of teaching English in the country is still low internationally, according to new data released by a global language training company.

According to Education First (EF), educational institutions, companies and individuals are increasingly embracing English language learning; however, many countries are failing to measure the results of their efforts.

“Although the Middle East and North Africa are the regions that are weakest in English teaching, the UAE has improved significantly this year as an exception to the region’s lackluster performance,” the EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI), announced in the study.

EF EPI is a report that attempts to rank countries by the average level of English skills among adults. It draws its conclusions from data collected via online English tests available for free over the internet.

The UAE has succeeded in developing knowledge economies before its oil production peaks and made vital progress in its ability in English. The UAE is now ranked number one regionally and 36th internationally in English proficiency among 60 countries, EF EPI confirmed.

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Dictionary of American Regional English is getting updated
By Patty Murray, WPR.org

WISCONSIN, November 6, 2013—The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is getting updated, and University of Wisconsin researchers are curious about how the language has changed since data was first collected.

DARE was only recently finished – the words were collected in from 1,000 communities around the country back in the late 1960s.The project began in Wisconsin a few years earlier. Now, a new online pilot project will update the work.

“We've just launched it in Madison and Algoma, one of our small communities and a large community, to test it out and see if it works,” says Joan Houston Hall, DARE’s chief editor.

Algoma was one of 22 communities that were visited in the ’60s and will be studied again. Madison is one of 30 “official” places that were added.

Houston Hall says some people think the English language has become homogenized as the nation has become more mobile. “I'm skeptical of that,” she says. “It seems to me that what we find is that language does change, of course, but it doesn't change at the same rates or in the same ways in all places.”

Houston Hall says some obsolete terms from the original survey have been tossed out. New respondents will be asked about things that didn't exist 40 or 50 years ago. “We’ll ask, ‘What do you call the device you use to change the channel on a TV?’ or, ‘What do you call the cardboard thing you put around a cup of coffee so you don't burn your hand?’”

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Listen! Beowulf opening line misinterpreted for 200 years
By Jonathan Brown, The Independent UK
             
November 5, 2013—It is perhaps the most important word in one of the greatest and most famous sentences in the history of the English language.

Yet for more than two centuries “hwæt” has been misrepresented as an attention-grabbing latter-day “yo!” designed to capture the interest of its intended Anglo-Saxon audience urging them to sit down and listen up to the exploits of the heroic monster-slayer Beowulf.

According to an academic at the University of Manchester, however, the accepted definition of the opening line of the epic poem – including the most recent translation by the late Seamus Heaney - has been subtly wide of the mark.

In a new paper, Dr George Walkden argues that the use of the interrogative pronoun  “hwæt” (rhymes with cat) means the first line is not a standalone command but informs the wider exclamatory nature of the sentence which was written by an unknown poet between 1,200 and 1,300 years ago.

According to the historical linguist, rather than reading: “Listen! We have heard of the might of the kings” the Old English of “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga,  þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas  ellen fremedon!” should instead be understood as: “How we have heard of the might of the kings.”

Dr Walkden said his conclusion – based on the positioning of the word relative to the verb within 141 other clauses studied – would put him at odds with the conventional wisdom on the subject.

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Language watchdog warns rites may cause “ugly” linguistic wars
By Mike de Souza, Postmedia News

OTTAWA, November 7, 2013—Parliament’s language watchdog is concerned that the Harper government’s plans to celebrate upcoming anniversaries of Confederation and military events from the two world wars may spark some “ugly” linguistic wars.

In his latest annual report to Parliament, Graham Fraser, the commissioner of official languages, said the anniversaries should serve as an opportunity for public education, while recognizing conflicting narratives in Canadian history.

“Events like the First World War stimulate different recollections, with memories of heroic sacrifice co-existing uneasily with stories of conscription, anti-French-Canadian insults and soldiers shooting on anti-conscription rioters in Quebec City,” Fraser wrote in the report, tabled on Thursday.

He also noted that the Second World War is remembered in different ways along linguistic lines, with about 80 per cent of Quebecers opposed to conscription and 80 per cent of Canadians in the rest of the country in favour.

“Thus, it is critical that these anniversaries become as much a time for reflection as for celebration, and for recognition that the events being remembered were often the source of bitter, divisive, even sometimes violent disagreement and debate at the time.”

“Any attempt to treat them as moments of uncomplicated flag-waving unity will be unconstructive at best and, at worst, inflame ugly linguistic emotions.”

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India outsourcing more call-center operations to the Philippines

BANGKOK, October 28, 2013 (Bangkok Post)—India was widely regarded as the global IT-BPO leader for many years but the Philippines took over the crown in the call-centre segment from India in 2011.

Some Indian companies have now expanded to the Philippines to take advantage of a large talent pool and low costs.

Avantika Desai, senior manager for corporate relations and strategic programmes with Aegis, said the company’s profit margin from the Philippine operation was as high as 40-50%. The Indian operation does not have such a high margin because most of the clients are local companies, while the clients of the Philippine unit are Fortune 500 companies.

Aegis expanded to the Philippines in 2008 through the acquisition of People Support. It was looking for new human resources for its voice services, and the Philippines was able to provide a pool of workers with good spoken English skills. It benefited initially from tax exemptions and reduced costs, but competition in the BPO industry has pushed up salaries and the government has increased the minimum wage, so cost savings are no longer as great.

“In India, the wage cost is now lower than in the Philippines, but we have to pay higher costs for taxes. In the Philippines, we pay less tax, but the wage cost is increasing,” said Ms Desai.

However, Aegis is still happy with the operation in the Philippines because it has the opportunity to serve international clients that pay more for its services, she added.

Asheesh Mehra, head of BPO for Asia Pacific, Japan and the Middle East with Infosys, said that the primary reason for doing business in the Philippines was the demand of customers who are looking for English-language support for voice-based service.

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China introduces education reforms de-emphasizing English

BEIJING, October 24, 2013—The Beijing Municipal Education Commission proposed education reforms that will de-emphasize English language curriculum in the gaokao, China’s national higher education examinations. The proposition aims to relieve pressure on China’s students to master the language and counteracts fears of the English language eventually overtaking Mandarin. The decision was met with conflictual opinions from China’s students, parents, and educators.

Beginning in 2016, Beijing’s English language higher education entrance exams will be reduced from 150 to 100 points while the number of points given to Chinese and mathematics will be increased; English, Chinese, and mathematics currently have the same weighting. An additional recommendation suggests completely removing English language classes from the country’s curriculum before grade three.

According to the Beijing Education Examinations Authority, the adjustments will “focus on English-language application and basic skills, while playing down its selection function.” Li Yi of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education said, “the change highlights the fundamental importance of [the] mother tongue in the curriculum.”

Sang Jinlong, deputy head of Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences explained, “the general public is dissatisfied with a school system that gives emphasis to English over Chinese.”

In contrast, a Chinese citizen reportedly called the proposal a “setback of history” and “complacent and conservative,” and urged citizens to give greater importance to the English language because it “empowers people to communicate with the world by themselves.”

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Research shows the English of the Italians, Germans, and French isn’t so great

THE NETHERLANDS, September 26, 2013—Italians, Germans and the French are the most insecure in Europe about their levels of English, with Swedes among the most confident, data showed Thursday.

In celebration of European Language Day, the Eurostat statistics agency said 66 percent of working age adults claim to know at least one foreign language, with English overwhelmingly the most popular except in the Baltic states, Luxembourg and Slovakia.

But asked if their level of English was “proficient,” “good,” or just “fair,” 64 percent of Italians said only fair, followed by 50 percent in Germany and 49 percent in France.

In Malta, Britain's one-time Mediterranean outpost, 53 percent of respondents judged themselves proficient in English followed by Sweden at 43 percent and Denmark at 36 percent.

The data showed a whopping 94 percent of upper secondary school students in the European Union choosing English as their second language, with French a distant second at 23 percent, and German at 21 percent.

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Ancient 4,000-year-old forerunner of English to be recorded soon

LOS ANGELES, California (September 30, 2013)—The Proto-Indo-European, or PIE language, was spoken throughout Europe and Asia about 4,000 years ago and formed the basis of the English language. The sound of this archaic tongue is set to be recorded for the very first time using ancient texts, thanks to modern day linguists.

There is no written record of the PIE language, but after decades of research, Dr. Andrew Byrd, a linguistics expert from the University of Kentucky, will read the parable of the sheep and the horses in the long-disused tongue.

Dr. Byrd was able to recreate an approximate version based on knowledge of ancient texts in Indo-European languages, such as Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. PIE was last spoken between approximately 4,500 and 2,500 B.C by our ancestors from all over Europe and Asia.

Written in 1868 by German linguist Dr. August Schleicher, the parable itself was translated into PIE as a way to experiment with the vocabulary. Byrd notes that there is no way to create a definitive version of the language and Byrd says his pronunciation is “a very educated approximation.

“Languages differ on how they pattern their sounds together, and they use those sounds to create new words. Proto-Indo-European is very guttural,” Byrd told journalists.

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China says 400 million can’t speak Mandarin as national language

BEIJING, September 5, 2013 (Reuters)—More than 400 million Chinese are unable to speak the national language Mandarin, and large numbers in the rest of the country speak it badly, state media said on Thursday as the government launched another push for linguistic unity.

China’s ruling Communist Party has promoted Mandarin for decades to unite a nation with thousands of often mutually unintelligible dialects and numerous minority languages, but has been hampered by the country’s size and lack of investment in education, especially in poor rural areas.

Officials have admitted they will probably never get the whole country to be able to speak Mandarin, formally called Putonghua in China, meaning “common tongue,” suggesting everyone should be able to speak it.

Ministry of Education spokeswoman Xu Mei said that only 70 percent of the country could speak Mandarin, many of them poorly, and the remaining 30 percent or 400 million people could not speak it at all, Xinhua news agency reported.

“The country still needs to invest in promoting Mandarin,” it quoted her as saying, ahead of an annual campaign to promote Mandarin held every year since 1998.

“This year the ministry will focus on the remote countryside and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities,” Xu said.

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Montreal holds rally to show concern over erosion in use of French language

MONTREAL, September 19, 2013–A protest to shine a light on the importance of French in Montreal took place on Wednesday night.

Hundreds of people gathered at the Place des Festivals, with many holding lamps. They grouped together to create an enormous glowing “101″ and “MTL 101.”

The idea behind the rally is to “highlight the fact that Montreal is the second largest French-speaking city in the world.”

Billed as the “101 in Lights,” the rally was organized by Partenaires pour un Québec français (“Partners for a French Quebec”), which is made up of groups like the Société St-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal and the Mouvement national des Québécois, as well as several trade unions whose members care about the importance of French in the city.

The event took place as another group called for Montreal to have special status as a “city-state.”

Under Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, also known as Bill 101, all businesses in the province are required to have a French-language name and signage.

But many concerned about language erosion are frustrated with the refusal of some businesses to translate their names.

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Oxford Dictionary recognizes “to twerk” after Miley Cyrus offers visual definition
By Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times

August 28, 2013—In the days following Miley Cyrus’s much-discussed bump-and-grind performance at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, the word “twerk” — that is, to dance “in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance” — seems to be ubiquitous. It’s on the tip of the tongue of nearly every television host, and a search of LexisNexis archives turns up the word in more than 250 news articles in the last week alone.

“Won’t twerking just go away?” the linguistically aggrieved ask. Well, no — and, in fact, the word is getting some acknowledgment from one of the English language’s most august reference volumes.

Oxford Dictionaries, which is responsible for the Oxford English Dictionary and other reference works, said that it would add “twerk” to its listings as part of a quarterly online update, The Associated Press reported. A definition for “twerk” can be found at oxforddictionaries.com (where helpful examples of the word’s use include “just wait till they catch their daughters twerking to this song”).

Though the word “twerk” may seem all too of the moment, Katherine Connor Martin, an editor at the Oxford Dictionaries site, told The A.P. that this verb was probably about two decades old.

“There are many theories about the origin of this word, and since it arose in oral use, we may never know the answer for sure,” Ms. Martin said. “We think the most likely theory is that it is an alteration of work, because that word has a history of being used in similar ways, with dancers being encouraged to ‘work it.’ The ‘t’ could be a result of blending with another word such as twist or twitch.”

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Woman says Richmond McDonald’s asked her to leave due to inadequate English

METRO VANCOUVER, Canada, August 23, 2013—People have the right to be served, no matter what their first language is. That’s the view of the son of Hai Xia Sun, who claims she was asked to leave McDonald's on No.3 Road and Granville Avenue last week after what the global restaurant chain is referring to as a “language barrier.”

The problem began when, after ordering a hot chocolate, Sun, 51, who’s lived in Canada for ten years, received a coffee instead.

And when she tried to have the mistake corrected, she claims she was dismissed by the manager on duty, who allegedly refused to serve Sun because staff couldn’t understand her English.

The only problem her son, Frank Zhao, has with that explanation is that he says his mother was speaking English and has never encountered an issue in ten years in the country.

“I think the point here is that people should get served no matter what their first language is,” Zhao told the News.

"My mom was speaking English, but what about tourists coming here who don't speak English? Are they going to get refused service as well?"

Zhao said his mom, who has to speak English first in her job in a local hotel, came to Canada because of the respect the country has for different cultures.

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Irate grammarians slam Google’s definition of the word “literally”
By Jaclyn Skurie, National Geographic News

August 16, 2013—The Internet is abuzz with irate grammarians criticizing the way Google defines the word “literally.”

In addition to the word’s original meaning—“in a literal manner or sense”—the Google definition also reads “used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.” The key words here: used to.

Bloggers are declaring it the end of the English language and a dark day for linguists. How can the definition of the word “literally” literally not be literal?

An employee at Words Worth Books, an Ontario bookstore, wrote on Twitter that “one of our staff was so upset about this, he had to go lie down. #literally.” “We did it guys! We killed English!” tweeted someone with the handle @magnus72.

But these quibblers are wrong. The un-literal definition of “literally” is not new. It has been used for at least 200 years, and we have the proof. Literally.

In 1769’s The History of Emily Montague, novelist Frances Brooke wrote, “He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies.” Was this lucky man of mystery literally eating lilies? No. He was simply surrounded by a selection of attractive women—figurative lilies.

The Oxford English Dictionary has also listed this secondary definition of the controversial term since 1903.

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Is the Oxford English Dictionary really redefining “marriage”?
By J. Bryan Lowder, Slate.com

July 29, 2013—Following on an initial story last week from LGBT news site Gay Star News, news outlets across the Internet reported on Friday that the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary—the publication widely recognized as the premiere authority on the English language—are considering revising the definition of “marriage” to include same-sex unions. The change was attributed to recent decisions in favor of marriage equality in the U.K. and elsewhere and touted as a victory for the LGBT movement.

Though such a development would not be unwelcome, we had a sneaking suspicion while sorting through the coverage that this story might be a bit overblown. Here’s the original quote, from an OED spokeswoman, that caused all the hoopla: “We continually monitor the words in our dictionaries, paying particular [attention] to those words whose usage is shifting, so yes, this will happen with marriage.” By our reading, this statement simply confirms that the OED will consider revising the definition of marriage in the same way that it does for any word whose usage is changing—not that any new definition is definitely forthcoming. And indeed, the Director of U.S. Publicity for the Oxford University Press confirmed our interpretation today in an official statement:

Many of our dictionaries including the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as oxforddictionaries.com, already include references to same sex-marriage as part of their definitions. Dictionaries reflect changes in the use of language, rather than changes in law, and we are constantly monitoring usage in this area in order to consider what revisions and updates we may need to make. The English language is always developing and, along with many other words, we will continue to monitor the way in which ‘marriage’ is used.

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Facebook launches Graph Search to all English-speaking users
By Zach Miners, IDG News Service

August 7, 2013—Facebook is rolling out Graph Search, its newfangled social search engine, to everyone who uses the U.S. English language, the company announced Wednesday.

Graph Search provides a way for users to search for various topics and interests across the site based on their existing connections and friends. Graph Search lets users submit their queries in plain English, so people can search for things like, “Friends who live in my city,” or “Hotels in San Francisco visited by my friends,” or even, “Music liked by people who like the music that I like,” Facebook notes.

The company began rolling out the tool to a limited number of people in January. At an introductory press conference at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described Graph Search as an early stage feature that is still years away from being complete.

“Graph Search is a really big project, and it's going to take years and years to index the whole map of the graph,” he said at the time.

Following Wednesday's expansion, people can continue to search for friends and Pages by name, Facebook said, or use simple phrases to find something specific across people, photos, places, interests and more.

Since its unveiling, Facebook has had to address tough questions over Graph Search's privacy implications. One major issue is the extent to which the tool makes it easier for people to unearth content or information about others who do not want that content to be seen.

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Rude English word enters German language

July 2, 2013—Germany’s standard dictionary has included a vulgar English term, used by Chancellor Angela Merkel among others, as an acceptable German word.

“Duden,” the equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary in the UK, said it was reflecting the common use of the word “shitstorm” among Germans.

The word, which is used in German to denote a public outcry, seems to have caught on during the eurozone crisis.

German language experts voted it “Anglicism of the year” in 2012.

One of them, Michael Mann, explained in a report by the Local newspaper, that the English word conveyed a “new kind of protest... clearly different in kind and degree from what could be expected in the past in response to a statement or action.”

In the past there have been controversies over German usage of words like “download”, “job-hopping” or “eye-catcher”, the BBC's Steve Evans reports from Berlin.

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No matter the cost, English-language requirements aren’t going anywhere
By Matt Berman, NationalJournal.com

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 27, 2013—In a sweeping new program to slash the welfare state, a government announced a statute on Wednesday that will prevent people who are not proficient in English—or at least enrolled in English language classes—from drawing unemployment benefits. This isn’t happening in the United States. This is a British proposal, announced in the United Kingdom, by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

But the emphasis on encouraging new residents to speak English isn’t just a British thing: It’s ingrained in the comprehensive immigration-reform bill that the Senate may pass Thursday, and it’s furthered by a big amendment that could go up for a vote from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

The new rule in the U.K. is pretty straightforward: As part of a program designed to cut £350 million in welfare spending in 2015-16, U.K. residents will not be able to receive unemployment benefits unless they are either proficient in English or enrolled in English language classes. The minimum level of language proficiency in the U.K. is that of a 9-year-old native.

In the U.S., as part of the Senate’s immigration bill, to receive a green card for permanent residency, immigrants must be either proficient in English or be taking English language classes. Under current law, English proficiency is required only to gain citizenship. Immigrants only need to have “developing” language skills to be considered proficient.

Rubio, however, is trying to make the English requirements in the Senate bill significantly stricter. He introduced an amendment that would require green-card recipients to be proficient in English—not just taking classes to get there. The fate of that amendment in the Senate isn’t clear, but it could be resolved Thursday.

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Japan’s public broadcaster sued over use of English words
By Justin McCurry, Guardian.co.uk

TOKYO, June 27, 2013—Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, is in a spot of toraburu with a disgruntled viewer who has filed a damages lawsuit against the company for the “mental distress” caused by its excessive use of words derived from English.

Hoji Takahashi, who says he represents a pressure group that protects the Japanese language, is seeking 1.41 million yen (£9,300) in damages from NHK, reports said.

In his suit filed with the Nagoya district court, Takahashi said the deluge of English words used in NHK’s news and entertainment programmes had caused him emotional distress, and accused the broadcaster of ignoring its responsibility to use Japanese alternatives.

Among the words he cited as particularly troublesome were kea (care), toraburu (trouble), risuku (risk) and shisutemu (system). He also noted the frequent use of loan words in programme titles, such as BS Kosheruju (BS Concierge) and Sutajio Paaku Kara Konnichiwa (Hello from Studio Park).

The 71-year-old claims he and other elderly viewers had been left baffled by some of NHK’s content. “I contacted NHK to inquire about this, but there was no response so I decided to take the matter to court,” Kyodo News quoted him as saying. “I want the broadcaster to take into account elderly viewers like me when it is creating shows.”

The frequent use of words derived from English, plus a smaller number whose origins can be found in Portuguese, Dutch and other languages, is not confined to NHK.

But Takahashi said that given its considerable reach and influence, the company had a responsibility to remain neutral and appeal to as many viewers as possible.

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French stands nary a chance against a global English-language tsunami
By Evelyn Leopold, HuffingtonPost.com

UNITED NATIONS, New York, June 4, 2013—French, once the language of high culture, kings and queens, and pin-striped diplomats, is drowning in a global tsunami of English usage in commerce, science, education—and even at the multilingual United Nations.

The United Nations has six official languages but English and French are considered the “working” languages. Yet without fluent English, journalists can’t understand press conferences, diplomats can’t negotiate resolutions and officials in the field can’t file reports.

Still, many of the U.N. peacekeeping missions are in Africa—and in French-speaking lands, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Mali. Too often senior U.N. officials heading these operations, while fluent in French, are not native French speakers.

At a recent session at the Consulate General of France in New York, Stephane Dujarric, director of the U.N.’s News and Media Division, said:

“So my simple answer is: learn English!

“It’s not abdicating in the face of an English tsunami. It’s about making sure you know how to swim.”

If you don’t speak and especially write English fluently you will not be hired in an international organization or you will not be able to prosper in it. Let’s recognize that in this very point in human history, English is the dominant language. Nothing lasts forever. Tomorrow it may be Mandarin and a few hundred years later Arabic. But today it’s English. That’s an indisputable fact.

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The English language in the “Asian century”
By Phan Le Ha, University world News

June 2013—Asia is seen as the future for the internationalisation of higher education, and the globalisation of English is enabling this future. Countries in Asia have therefore started to align their internationalisation strategies towards this Asia focus.

For example, Singapore’s Minister of Education Heng Swee Keat concluded in his talk at the Singapore Management University on 16 February: “Asia is going to be a critical part of our future. The more we understand what is going on in Asia, the better our future will be. We must position ourselves as a global Asian hub that connects Asia with the world.”

The internationalisation of higher education and the English language play a key role in Singapore’s endeavour to become a ‘global Asian hub’ and to identify and create ‘advantages that others find relevant’.

However, it seems that the internationalisation policies of countries and universities in Asia seldom question the global dominance of English and what consequences it may have for knowledge and scholarship building and the general well-being of Asian societies in the long run.

Let me now turn to a few interrelated issues to elaborate this problem further.

Scholars continue to raise questions related to the overemphasis on the English-only curriculum and the English-only mentality when it comes to what counts as valid knowledge and as legitimate intellectual sources in knowledge exchanges and knowledge production.

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Language authorities break rules, add “tweet” to Oxford English Dictionary
By Rosa Golijan, TODAY

June 14, 2013—Authorities on the English language — the folks behind the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), to be specific — have once again seen it fit to acknowledge the existence of some terms which techies have been mumbling (and typing) for years.

Yes, that’s right — you can finally talk about “big data,” “crowdsourcing,” “e-readers,” “mouseovers,” “redirects,” “streams,” and more without fretting that you’re using the terms in an unsanctioned manner.

And you can also use “tweet” — as a verb or a noun — to discuss social networking. “This breaks at least one OED rule, namely that a new word needs to be current for 10 years before consideration for inclusion,” John Simpson, chief editor of the OED, explains in a blog post. “But it seems to be catching on.”

It'll be a few more years before Twitter-related terms will actually meet that OED standard, of course. One of the very first tweets went out on March 21, 2006, though the service didn't truly gain popularity until the next year's South by Southwest (SXSW) conference.

Mind you, the Oxford Dictionaries Online (ODO) — which focuses on the current state of the English language and includes modern meanings and uses of words — has already included “tweeps” and other Twitter-related terms for quite some time.

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